Dream Debut For New Loanee

Manager Lee Johnson has hailed the impact of new loan signing Mike Petrasso.

The young QPR winger was very lively on his debut and of course grabbed the goal that gifted us a hard earned three points on the day.

Speaking to the press following the match, Johnson's comments were unfortunately dominated by the red card incident with Genseric Kusunga when he clashed with Danny Kedwell. This is also then led to the unfortunate sight of both teams having a bit of handbags before we were reduced to ten men.

'I thought it was a poor sending off. The fella scythed him at the knee, he pretty much power slammed him over the hoardings. How do you expect someone not to react to that?'

Johnson goes on to say that the club will be looking at the event closely again and they will be hopefully appealing it as he feels Kusunga was harshly done by in the moment from the referee.

As for the goal scorer and the new face around Boundary Park, Johnson couldn't praise Petrasso more saying that for an 18 year old to move to a new club and then to come to a club like Gillingham away from home and deal with an intense crowd, and then still put in a performance like that and not be distracted just shows exactly why he is so highly rated within Queens Park Rangers.

'It's a great day for him to go home and phone Canada to tell his mum and dad he scored the winner. It was a big decision to play him, but I just felt he had youthful exuberance.'

Adding that he worked hard for the team but fans need to be aware there is a lot more to come from him and hopefully in games to come we'll see more of that as he grows in confidence and belief.

Certainly a good start for the youngster, he won't do that every game admittedly, but if he has that in his locker, maybe he can add a couple more before his deal with us expires. We all win then.